Family / Community
κοινωνία (koinonia)(khoi-nooo-neeah) - fellowship. what is shared in common as the basis of fellowship.
Tozer
The Christian life begins with the individual; a soul has a saving encounter with God and the new life is born. Not all the pooled efforts of any church can make a Christian out of a lost man. But once the great transaction’s done the communion of believers will be found to be the best environment for the new life. Men are made for each other, and this is never more apparent than in the church. All else being equal, the individual Christian will find in the communion of a local church the most perfect atmosphere for the fullest development of his spiritual life. There also he will find the best arena for the largest exercise of those gifts and powers with which God may have endowed him. The religious solitary may gain on a few points, and he may escape some of the irritations of the crowd, but he is a half-man, nevertheless, and worse, he is a half-Christian. Every solitary experience, if we would realize its beneficial effects, should be followed immediately by a return to our own company. There will be found the faith of Christ in its most perfect present manifestation. But one thing must be kept in mind: these things are true only where the local church is a church indeed, where the communion of saints is more than a phrase from the Creed but is realized and practiced in faith and love. 😶Those religio-social institutions, with which we are all too familiar, where worship is a form, the sermon an essay and the prayer an embarrassed address to someone who isn’t there, certainly do not qualify as churches under any scriptural terms with which we are acquainted.
JJ on Romans 1:31, 2 Timothy 3:3
they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Romans 1:31
without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 2 Timothy 3:3
“Heartless” and “without love” are translated from the same Greek word called astorgos. The prefix a denotes a negation of storgos which is from storgé meaning family affection. This is why the word is more accurately translated as “without natural affection.” In fact, I would go even further to imply that in both contexts it is used the word further emphasizes Paul’s charge for Christians to love their parents and immediate family. Paul precedes each of these texts with a seperate, clearer charge to his intended reader to obey their parents.
Spurgeon on James 4:8-12
Sermon link If you draw near to God, dear friends, it will also help you to think well of other people. “Speak not evil of one another,” says the apostle in the eleventh verse. When you know that the great Judge of all Himself is near, you will not be so quick as you sometimes are to take His work out of His hands, but you will let Him judge. I am sure that the man who lives near to God gets to have a kindly feeling towards others. If ever you find a person saying that there is no life in the church, and finding fault with everybody, you may be sure that that man has not seen Jesus Christ of late, for Jesus Christ speaks not so. He says of His people all He can that is good. Surely, if Christ loves His church, you ought not to find so much fault with it. “Speak not evil one of another, brethren,” else it will prove that you have not been anywhere near your Master of late.
Spurgeon on James 3:12
This fact ought also to promote in us brotherly admiration. It is one of the most beautiful exhibitions of a Christian spirit when a Christian man admires the gifts and graces of others more than he admires his own, when, instead of thinking of anything in which he excels others, he delights in those things in which they excel him. We ought to emulate the spirit of that noble Roman who, when he was beaten at an election, said he was glad that his country had so many better men than himself.
It is not always easy to feel, “I am happy in knowing of a brother who is so much more brilliant than I am, for the world sadly needs far more light than I can give.” It is not always easy to play the least important instrument in the band, and to rejoice that somebody else can beat the big drum, or blow the silver cornet, yet that ought to be our feeling.
You remember how prettily Bunyan speaks of Christiana and Mercy admiring each other after they had been in the bath, “They could not see that glory each one on herself which they could see in each other. Now, therefore, they began to esteem each other better than themselves. ‘For you are fairer than I am,’ said one, ‘and you are more comely than I am,’ said another.” So should Christians see and admire the work of the Spirit in other Christians, and should bless God that there are such gracious men and women in the world, while those who are thus admired should, in their turn, see greater excellence in others than they see in themselves.
And once more, this variety of gifts and graces helps to foster fellowship. I often feel, when I am conversing with some of the poorest and feeblest members of this church, that I am greatly profited by what they say to me. They usually speak very kindly concerning the comfort they receive from my preaching, and any advice I am able to give them when they come to see me, but I am certain that I derive benefit from them. It is impossible for two Christian men or women who are in a right state of heart, to converse with one another about the things of God without both of them being thereby spiritually enriched.
Spurgeon on parents in 3 John 4
Sermon link No parents can say from their hearts, “We have no greater joy than to hear that our children walk in the truth,” unless they are themselves, walking in truth. No wolf prays for its offspring to become a sheep. The ungodly man sets small store by the godliness of his children, since he thinks nothing of it for himself. He who does not value his own soul is not likely to value the souls of his descendants. He who rejects Christ on his own account is not likely to be enamored of Him on his children’s behalf. Abraham prayed for Ishmael, but I never read that Ishmael prayed for his son Nebajoth. I fear that many, even among professors of religion, could not truthfully repeat my text, they look for other joy in their children and care little whether they are walking in the truth or not. They joy in them if they are healthy in body, but they are not saddened if the leprosy of sin remains upon them. They joy in their comely looks but do not inquire whether they have found favor in the sight of the Lord. Put the girl’s feet in silver slippers, and many heads of families would never raise the question as to whether she walked the broad or the narrow road. It is very grievous to see how some professedly Christian parents are satisfied so long as their children display cleverness in learning, or sharpness in business, although they show no signs of a renewed nature. If they pass their examinations with credit, and promise to be well-fitted for the world’s battle, their parents forget that there is a superior calling, involving a higher crown, for which the child will need to be fitted by divine grace and armed with the whole armor of God. Alas, if our children lose the crown of life, it will be but a small consolation that they have won the laurels of literature or art. Many who ought to know better think themselves superlatively blessed in their children if they become rich, if they marry well, if they strike out into profitable enterprises in trade, or if they attain eminence in the profession which they have espoused. Their parents will go to their beds rejoicing and awake perfectly satisfied, though their boys are hastening down to hell, if they are also making money by the bushel. They have no greater joy than that their children are having their portion in this life and laying up treasure where rust corrupts it. Though neither their sons nor daughters show any signs of the new birth; give no evidence of being rich towards God, manifest no traces of electing love or redeeming grace, or the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, yet there are parents who are content with their condition. Now I can only say of such professing parents that they have need to question whether they are Christians at all. And if they will not question it themselves, they must give some of us leave to hold it in serious debate. When a man’s heart is really right with God and he himself, has been saved from the wrath to come and is living in the light of his heavenly Father’s countenance, it is certain that he is anxious about his children’s souls, prizes their immortal natures and feels that nothing could give him greater joy than to hear that his children walk in the truth. Judge yourselves, then, beloved, this morning, by the gentle but searching test of the text. If you are professing Christians, but cannot say that you have no greater joy than the conversion of your children, you have reason to question whether you ought to have made such a profession at all.
I will tell you why this is peculiarly the great joy of some Christian parents—it is because they have made it a subject of persistent prayer. That which comes to us by the gate of prayer comes into the house with music and rallying. If you have asked for it with tears, you will receive it with smiles. The joy of an answer to prayer is very much in proportion to the wrestling which went with the prayer. If you have felt, sometimes, as though your heart could break for your offspring unless they were soon converted to God, then, I will tell you, when they are converted you will feel as though your heart would break the other way out of joy to think that they have been saved. Your eyes, which have been red with weeping over their youthful follies, will one day become bright with rejoicing over holy actions which will mark the work of the grace of God in their hearts. No wonder that Hannah sang so sweetly, for she had prayed so earnestly. The Lord had heard her and the joy of the answer was increased by the former anguish of her prayer. We have no greater joy than this that our children walk in the truth. And it is a right and allowable joy. It springs from good sources and we need not be afraid to indulge it.
Maclaren on 1 John 1:7
Link John was the Apostle of love, but he was also a ‘son of thunder.’ His intense moral earnestness and his very love made him hate evil, and sternly condemn it; and his words flash and roll as no other words in Scripture, except the words of the Lord of love. In the immediate context he has been laying down what is to him the very heart of his message, that ‘God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.’ There are spots in the sun, great tracts of blackness on its radiant disc; but in God is unmingled, perfect purity. That being so, it is clear that no man can be in sympathy or hold communion with Him, unless he, too, in his measure, is light.
So, with fiery indignation, John turns to the people, of whom there were some, even in the primitive Church, who made claims to a lofty spirituality and communion with God, and all the while were manifestly living in the darkness of sin. He will not mince matters with them. He roundly says that they are lying, and the worst sort of lie—an acted lie: ‘They do not the truth.’ Then, with a quick turn, he opposes to these pretenders the men who really are in fellowship with God, and in my text lays down the principle that walking in the light is essential to fellowship with God. Only, in his usual fashion, he turns the antithesis into a somewhat different form, so as to suggest another aspect of the truth, and instead of saying, as we might expect for the verbal accuracy of the contrast, ‘If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with God,’ he says, ‘we have fellowship one with another.’ Then he adds a still further result of that walk, ‘the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.’
That just comes to this, that the only cement that perfectly knits men to each other is their common possession of that light, and the consequent fellowship with God. There are plenty of other bonds that draw us to one another; but these, if they are not strengthened by this deepest of all bonds, the affinity of souls, that are moving together in the realm of light and purity, are precarious, and apt to snap. Sin separates men quite as much as it separates each man from God.